


Key Words

by Fabrisse



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-20
Updated: 2007-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-16 15:46:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/541157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fabrisse/pseuds/Fabrisse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What are the most important words to a profiler?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Key Words

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in response to the June prompt at "criminal_prompt"

At some point during his psychology lectures, a student would always ask what the most important words in the English language were.

Some of them expected "I love you" or one of its variations. A few of the more extreme ones obviously expected profanity, and he thought some might think he'd pick prayer.

But Jason Gideon's answer was simple. "Shut up."

"Shut up" in an interrogation room could be from accused to the interrogator or to his attorney or, in the case of a juvenile, to his parent or guardian. Outside the interrogation room "shut up" gave him a wealth of information about family and relationship dynamics -- both in who got to say the words and how the person to whom they were said reacted.

"Shut up" could indicate abuse or fear or remorse, depending on the situation and the inflection. Sometimes the prisoner was trying to tell it to the voices in his head, the ones no one else could hear. Sometimes, he was saying it to his victim just before he stopped the noise forever.

If you were asking the questions, "shut up" told you about shame. He knew one man who'd rather admit to killing three girls he hadn't touched than to getting an erection when he accidentally saw his mother naked in the shower. "Shut up" had told Gideon they had the wrong man, a false confession borne of deep-seated sexual shame.

And when Jason Gideon told someone else to shut up, the words meant it was time to go, to leave this life that had cost him people he worked with and people he loved.

"Shut up" meant he'd lost everything.


End file.
